Conventional chargers for powering a device and/or charging its battery typically include a center pin for actual charging, and an outer ring for the ground return. Other variations may exist, but, generally, conventional chargers include two contacts—a power contact and a ground contact. For instance, this type of charger is plugged directly into the device, thereby connecting to the power and ground contacts of the device. Within the charger itself, alternating current (AC) power is converted into direct current (DC) power in accordance with the power requirements of the device, which may vary from device to device depending on its power consumption, and DC power is delivered directly to the device in order to power the device and/or charge its battery. As a result, for example, a specific type of laptop computer usually has its own charger. Also, the size of the contacts may be dependent on the amount of power to be delivered. For instance, for larger devices, the location for their charging contacts may be limited since the charging contacts may be relatively large in order to handle increased power requirements typically associated with larger devices.
In addition, technologies have developed contactless chargers, which may charge devices via energy coupling such as capacitive coupling or inductive coupling. Capacitive coupling transfers energy within an electric field by means of the capacitance between circuit nodes. Capacitive coupled chargers typically have a relatively large active electrode and an even larger ground electrode. For example, because there is not a direct ground return, the ground electrode in the charger may be as large as the device itself in order to complete the charging circuit. Similarly, the device is equipped with an active electrode and a relatively large ground electrode. As such, when the device is placed in close proximity to the charger (e.g., placed on top of the charger), the capacitive coupled charger transfers charging energy to the device via the active electrodes and provides the ground path via capacitive coupling using the large ground electrodes. Decreasing the size of the ground electrode may greatly reduce the efficiency of the power transfer. Inductive coupling operates in a similar manner except coils are used to create a magnetic field, and energy is transferred via the magnetic field. None-the-less, in both cases, due to the relative large size of the ground contact, contactless chargers are often bulky and difficult to travel with. Furthermore, for high-powered devices, the conventional contactless chargers may not be as efficient as the conventional contact chargers due to energy loss from the contactless coupling.